Suit: Nassau cops fabricated allegations against retired Suffolk officer
Nassau police officers fabricated criminal allegations and falsely arrested a retired Suffolk cop to cover up misconduct by an Internal Affairs detective during a 2019 road rage incident, according to a federal lawsuit filed last month in Central Islip.
The lawsuit was filed by former police lieutenant William F. Hasper, a West Point graduate who served in the U.S. Army’s elite Airborne Rangers during the first Gulf War. It contends Nassau detectives knew Det. Sgt. William S. Russell of the department's Internal Affairs Unit lied when he said Hasper hit him with his pickup during a Feb. 15, 2019 confrontation in a bank parking lot.
“They wanted to arrest Hasper immediately out of malice, as retribution for" angering Russell, said the suit, filed May 25 in the Eastern District of New York, which contends other detectives were protecting Russell.
The complaint also alleges Hasper was held at gunpoint by Suffolk police officers three weeks after the incident because Nassau cops issued a false alert that said the retired officer’s pickup truck had been stolen.
Hasper’s lawsuit names Nassau County, Russell and several other police detectives as defendants. County, police and Nassau Detectives Association representatives declined to comment on the lawsuit.
“Nassau County does not comment on current or anticipated litigation,” a spokeswoman for County Executive Laura Curran said Thursday.
Court papers say the road rage incident began after Russell, on duty but dressed in plainclothes and driving an unmarked vehicle, waited at the entrance of the parking lot at the Bethpage Federal Credit Union on Old Country Road in Westbury for a spot to open up.
One of Hasper’s attorneys said the lawsuit, coming amid the national uproar over policing and protests over police brutality, raised questions about how law-enforcement agencies monitor wrongdoing among their own ranks.
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